Trial by Fury Read Online Free Page B
mention of the board chair. “I never liked Tuttle. He spits when he talks.” She took a long moment to absorb the news, a mar on the university she so loved. “I have a feeling this is going to get very ugly, Theo.”
“I know, but we can’t just let it go. Not with all this evidence. They did this to her—the players, the cops, the administration. They might as well have held the knife that slashed her wrists.”
“Causing a suicide? Won’t that be tough to prove?”
“I’m afraid so. I looked for some wiggle room in the Appling decision. Harwood had to know Hayley would suffer emotionally if she didn’t get justice. We could argue that makes it foreseeable.”
“Fine, but since when is wrongful death in our wheelhouse?”
Theo played the rape clip one more time. “Maybe it’s time we put it in our wheelhouse. Somebody has to answer for this woman.”
* * *
“ He started it.”
“ Did not.”
“ Did too.”
Celia’s home office shared a common wall with the Fowlers’ eight-year-old twins, whose words came through as clearly as if they were in the next room. She couldn’t wait until the family saved enough money for a down payment on a larger home. How they managed to live in a two-bedroom townhouse with two rambunctious boys and a newborn was beyond her.
Sitting at her desk, she turned on the TV to drown out the yelling. Not that cable news was much of an improvement, with their hyping of sensational stories that had absolutely zero relevance to the lives of real people.
“…bringing to a close the nineteenth GOP-led congressional investigation into the 2012 attack on the Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi. We’ll be back after this brief message with a report on some inflammatory charges against Illinois Senator Jim Collingwood, who filed for divorce on Monday from his wife of twenty-one years, after reporters here at TNS broke the story of his longtime affair with a Costa Rican beauty queen. Stay tuned.”
“Who cares about Jim Collingwood’s divorce? It’s none of our business,” she shouted at the TV, giving the Fowler boys a dose of their own medicine.
She needed at least another hour to finish changes to the syllabus for Introduction to Theater, or as she called it, Sixty-Five Freshmen in Need of a Humanities Credit. With any luck, her promotion would come through and the fall course would be given to one of the assistant professors so she could teach something more interesting. A craft class on TV directing, or maybe a seminar—anything that let her work with upperclassmen. Twelve years of teaching mostly fundamentals to freshmen and sophomores had gotten old. To say nothing of the fact that she drew mostly theater courses, when the department head knew her interest and expertise were in film and television.
“We’re back with news on the Jim Collingwood divorce. Following an anonymous report the senator was attempting to conceal his financial assets, his wife, Loretta Gordon Collingwood, hired famed women’s rights attorney Theodora Constantine to represent her in divorce filings. Constantine held a press conference this afternoon in our nation’s capital.”
Celia leaped from her desk and crossed the room to stand in front of her TV while repeatedly clicking the volume button on her remote.
Flanked by Mrs. Collingwood and her children—three daughters and three sons—Theo stood at an outdoor podium before a throng of reporters. The stiff collar of her suit, black with white piping, made her look like a military officer.
Her eyes blazing with undisguised contempt, she began, “It has been confirmed that, during the weeks prior to filing for divorce from the mother of his six children, Senator Jim Collingwood moved stocks valued at eighteen-point-six million dollars to a holding company headquartered in the Cayman Islands, and transferred his interest in a forty-million-dollar real estate group to Miss Roberta Castro, a citizen of Costa Rica with whom he’s alleged to
“I know, but we can’t just let it go. Not with all this evidence. They did this to her—the players, the cops, the administration. They might as well have held the knife that slashed her wrists.”
“Causing a suicide? Won’t that be tough to prove?”
“I’m afraid so. I looked for some wiggle room in the Appling decision. Harwood had to know Hayley would suffer emotionally if she didn’t get justice. We could argue that makes it foreseeable.”
“Fine, but since when is wrongful death in our wheelhouse?”
Theo played the rape clip one more time. “Maybe it’s time we put it in our wheelhouse. Somebody has to answer for this woman.”
* * *
“ He started it.”
“ Did not.”
“ Did too.”
Celia’s home office shared a common wall with the Fowlers’ eight-year-old twins, whose words came through as clearly as if they were in the next room. She couldn’t wait until the family saved enough money for a down payment on a larger home. How they managed to live in a two-bedroom townhouse with two rambunctious boys and a newborn was beyond her.
Sitting at her desk, she turned on the TV to drown out the yelling. Not that cable news was much of an improvement, with their hyping of sensational stories that had absolutely zero relevance to the lives of real people.
“…bringing to a close the nineteenth GOP-led congressional investigation into the 2012 attack on the Diplomatic Mission in Benghazi. We’ll be back after this brief message with a report on some inflammatory charges against Illinois Senator Jim Collingwood, who filed for divorce on Monday from his wife of twenty-one years, after reporters here at TNS broke the story of his longtime affair with a Costa Rican beauty queen. Stay tuned.”
“Who cares about Jim Collingwood’s divorce? It’s none of our business,” she shouted at the TV, giving the Fowler boys a dose of their own medicine.
She needed at least another hour to finish changes to the syllabus for Introduction to Theater, or as she called it, Sixty-Five Freshmen in Need of a Humanities Credit. With any luck, her promotion would come through and the fall course would be given to one of the assistant professors so she could teach something more interesting. A craft class on TV directing, or maybe a seminar—anything that let her work with upperclassmen. Twelve years of teaching mostly fundamentals to freshmen and sophomores had gotten old. To say nothing of the fact that she drew mostly theater courses, when the department head knew her interest and expertise were in film and television.
“We’re back with news on the Jim Collingwood divorce. Following an anonymous report the senator was attempting to conceal his financial assets, his wife, Loretta Gordon Collingwood, hired famed women’s rights attorney Theodora Constantine to represent her in divorce filings. Constantine held a press conference this afternoon in our nation’s capital.”
Celia leaped from her desk and crossed the room to stand in front of her TV while repeatedly clicking the volume button on her remote.
Flanked by Mrs. Collingwood and her children—three daughters and three sons—Theo stood at an outdoor podium before a throng of reporters. The stiff collar of her suit, black with white piping, made her look like a military officer.
Her eyes blazing with undisguised contempt, she began, “It has been confirmed that, during the weeks prior to filing for divorce from the mother of his six children, Senator Jim Collingwood moved stocks valued at eighteen-point-six million dollars to a holding company headquartered in the Cayman Islands, and transferred his interest in a forty-million-dollar real estate group to Miss Roberta Castro, a citizen of Costa Rica with whom he’s alleged to
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